One of the elements that contributes to our talent for self deception is that our attention is not as good as we think it is. It’s as though our world is constructed partly of what we actually receive with our senses and partly with what we tell ourselves we are receiving.

Psychologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were very interested in the work of Stage Magicians as it related to Misdirection and suggestion. Using the scientific knowledge at their disposal they were able to discover practically nothing about how magicians were able to manipulate audiences.

Modern psychologists have discovered value in using illusions similar to those used by stage magicians to help them understand how the mind works. Part of the art of misdirection employed by magic practitioners is a phenomenon that psychologists call “change blindness”.

Change blindness refers to our inability to see huge changes in a situation we are supposedly focusing our attention on. Here is a video showing how we exhibit change blindness.

One of the most startling experiments showing change blindness featured a video clip of a gorilla walking onto a basketball court. Hardly anyone noticed the appearance of the gorilla and when it was pointed out, some even accused the experimenters of switching videos.

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